If "walk-off" describes what happened at the Coliseum on Monday night, then Mardis Gras signifies "rest home." Somebody call Dennis Eckersley to make sense of all this.

The A's weren't walking after Jemile Weeks' 15th-inning sacrifice fly beat Tampa Bay 4-3 at precisely 12:17 Tuesday morning, and they certainly weren't heading off the field. It was a scene of bedlam and something the 2012 A's have perfected, having now won 12 games this way. Some teams are lucky to do it twice in a season. The A's divide up the riches like sticks of Doublemint.

It was a long, often exasperating night in the East Bay, a night that saw Oakland batters strike out a club-record 21 times and blow a number of late-inning chances. There couldn't have been more than a thousand people around at the finish. But it all seemed worthwhile as the A's found themselves just 3 1/2 games behind the first-place Texas Rangers in the A.L. West and left yet another stunning imprint on the baseball landscape.

It was Eckersley who coined the term "walk-off piece," cleverly describing that slow, lonely walk to the clubhouse when a pitcher gives up a game-ending hit - and in his mind, it only applied to home runs. It calls up images of complete disaster, a worst-case scenario, the short-reliever's nightmare. It was especially cool because Eckersley was a noted wordsmith and his career as an Oakland closer was, for the most part, flawless.

Somewhere along the line, "walk-off" shifted off the pitcher's mound and into the hitters' province. Just two syllables say it all - far more comfortably than "game-ending RBI" or something even more convoluted - and thus it entered the baseball lexicon. Once equated to failure in Oakland, it now means . . . well, a wildly entertaining win about once a week.

With a landmark Tuesday at hand, and the trading deadline just hours away, this was exactly what the A's had to show in their opener of a 10-game homestand. And it wasn't all about strikeouts. Leading off the second inning, Yoenis Cespedes hit a fairly routine chopper to third base. He didn't get out of the box too quickly, and he turned his head to check Ryan Roberts' play as he headed down the line - but he was just warming up the engine. Igniting an explosive new gear in an instant, he beat the throw for the type of infield single most players could not imagine.

The pitcher was Tampa Bay's David Price, a nasty customer and the American League's only 14-game winner. The count went to 2-2 on Chris Carter, who turned on a wicked inside slider and hammered a double down the left-field line. It was a drive that would have sent most baserunners to third, but Cespedes blazed home with ridiculous ease, sliding only for the sake of theater. Just when it seemed Price had matters under control with a 3-2 lead in the seventh, Brandon Hicks - that very essence of improbable A's baseball - hit a massive opposite-field homer to tie the game.

It was easy to picture a more festive scene across the bay, where the Giants hosted the Mets before the inevitably packed house. The talk shows can't get enough of the ever-shifting Giants-Dodgers dynamic, certainly one of the more compelling stories of local sports. Don't forget this, though: The A's have a far stiffer challenge in trying to reach the postseason - and if they pull it off, they'll own the regular-season bragging rights.

Now that the L.A. Angels have acquired Zack Greinke, they now have four pitchers worthy of opening a postseason series, to go along with Jeff Weaver, Dan Haren and C.J. Wilson. Rookie Mike Trout returned from a two-game absence (knee contusion) Monday night, resumed his pursuit of the batting title (.351 after a single and homer) and helped lead the Angels to a 15-8 rout of Texas. Albert Pujols is back to scaring the daylights out of people, and it wouldn't be a stretch to project this team as baseball's best by the onset of October.

As we speak, the A's have a half-game lead over this formidable-looking club at the top of the wild-card standings, and the once-invincible Rangers are shockingly within reach. How is that even possible? The battling theme songs would be "Going For Three" (World Series in a row) and "Chariots of Moss."

It's for real. The Rangers aren't sure they have any true aces in their rotation, and Josh Hamilton's recent slump was so horrific (.141 in July until his three-hit game Monday night), club owner Nolan Ryan and manager Ron Washington each called him out for "giving away at-bats" with careless swings.

A resurrected Hamilton can end this race all by himself; he's that good. Maybe the Angels catch fire and let other teams worry about the wild-card mess. Just don't forget the A's and their intimate little parties at the Coliseum. They won't be vanishing any time soon.